


HE ESSENTIAL MAN 



GEORGE CROSWEL1 



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THE ESSENTIAL MAN: 



A Monograph on Personal Immortality in 
the Light of Reason, 



GEORGE CROSWELL CRESSEY, Ph.D., 

Author of Essays on "The Philosophy of Religion ," "Mental Evolution," etc* 







BOSTON: 

Geo. H. Ellis, 141 Franklin Street. 

1895. 



Ko 



COPYRIGHTED BY 

GEORGE CROSWELL CRESSEY 

l8 9 S 




GEO. H. ELLIS, PRINTER, 141 FRANKLIN STREET, BOSTON. 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

Preface 5 

I. The Conditions of the Problem ... 9 

II. The Nature of Man 18 

III. The Persistence of Mind or Soul . . 30 

IV. The Nature of the Universe .... 42 
V. Personal Belief 58 

VI. Conditional Immortality 72 

VII. Conclusion 79 



PREFACE. 

There is a large and perhaps increasing 
class of those who can accept as conclusive 
concerning the destiny of man neither the 
testimony of assumed supernatural Revela- 
tion on the one hand, nor, on the other, the 
alleged direct evidence of so-called Spiritual- 
ism. With such, and indeed with all, the 
question arises naturally, what witness to 
the continued existence of man after death 
is found on the basis of reason alone. In 
other words, to what result does a logical 
consideration of all the facts of life lead us, 
especially, in view of modern knowledge, 
what does the unaided intellect of man teach 
in regard to the great problem of the future ? 
Briefly and concisely to reply to this question 
is the purpose of the following chapters, — 
to show how far we can expect definite con- 



6 PREFACE 

elusions on matters beyond the direct testi- 
mony of experience, and what within these 
limits the conclusions must be. The author 
seeks not support for traditional ideas, but 
that result to which an impartial examination 
of all the experience of life logically leads. 
Revelation and the claims of Spiritualism are 
neither accepted nor rejected, are not con- 
sidered, indeed, except as certain facts in 
connection therewith may form, from the 
nature of the case, an admitted portion of 
human experience, and consequently, as such, 
proper material — with other facts — for in- 
ference and conclusion. 

Such a discussion must be occasionally 
somewhat abstruse. Such parts, however, — 
especially the consideration of certain meta- 
physical aspects of the question in Chapter 
III., — when not strictly necessary to the 
course of the argument, are in the form of 
foot-notes ; and, throughout, to be as popular 
in presentation as a thorough and concise 



PREFACE 7 

treatment of the subject will allow has been 
the aim of the writer, whose single hope is 
that some may be strengthened thereby in 
thought and belief. 

Salem, Mass., January, 1895. 



CHAPTER I. 

THE CONDITIONS OF THE PROBLEM. 

Some years ago in the Cafe Frangais in 
Leipzig a German materialist to whom I had 
been casually introduced, began to force a 
discussion in regard to the immortality of the 
soul. His arguments were not difficult to 
answer even for a neophyte, but the incident 
gave a bent to my thought which led me 
thoroughly to investigate for myself the 
rational grounds upon which belief in con- 
tinued existence rests. 

The materialistic presentations of the case, 
of which that of Biichner was and still is 
perhaps the foremost in a popular way, and 
other more elaborate treatises of the same 
school were examined with great care, with 
less surprise, it must be said, at the weakness 
of their arguments than at the exhibition of 
dogmatism which, till then, I had innocently 
supposed to be confined to ecclesiastical dis- 
sertations. 



IO THE ESSENTIAL MAN 

To the arguments of this class, however, 
when found divorced from mere assertion of 
opinion, I was disposed to give all possible 
weight. Yet from facts it is, not from 
theories of any kind, that our conclusions 
must come ; or, in other words, any whole- 
some or tenable theory must be a valid in- 
ference from all the facts in any way perti- 
nent to the subject. 

There are certain facts of a physical nature 
in regard to man which are universally ac- 
cepted ; there are facts also in the mental, 
moral and spiritual realms which, whatever 
be the assumed explanation, no one pretends 
to deny as facts. 

An inference from all these facts must any 
conviction or belief be regarding the future 
of the world or of man. Not only the facts 
of science, but the facts of philosophy, of 
religion, of ethics, of the mental and moral 
life of humanity, all the known facts of the 
world and the universe, must be collectively 
the basis of any deduction or inference re- 
garding man's nature and destiny. Any 
conclusion founded on part only of these 
facts, — e.g., merely on a casual view of the 



THE CONDITIONS OF THE PROBLEM II 

physical organism, — is of so defective and 
partial a character as to be of absolutely no 
value. 

If man's true relation to the universe is to 
be discovered, it can be only through a sym- 
metrical view both of the general facts of the 
universe and of the facts of human life. It 
must be remembered, too, in this connection, 
that it is not the theories but the facts of 
science which are to be considered, especially 
such facts as neurology, biology, physiologi- 
cal psychology seem practically to have 
demonstrated. Other truths, moreover, have 
been discovered outside the strict lines of 
science by use of the scientific method, not- 
ably in the spheres of empirical and rational 
psychology and the general domain of meta- 
physics, which by no possibility can be ig- 
nored by the seeker after truth, but are 
fundamental in the construction of any logi- 
cal theory whatever of the world and of 
man. 

It is often said that, if the continued exist- 
ence of man beyond the event called death 
cannot be demonstrated, then the belief is 
groundless. No idea could be more illogical 



12 THE ESSENTIAL MAN 

and erroneous. There is in practical life 
and knowledge no demonstration in the 
strict sense. Even mathematical truths are 
either self-evident, — in which case, of course, 
there can no more be a demonstration than 
there can be need of one, — or all rest in 
their proof on a pure hypothesis ; let such 
and such be the case, then certain results 
will follow. In real life the truths we all ac- 
cept are either self-evident or axiomatic, i.e., 
we have only to think of them to be positive 
of the principle or result, or they are con- 
clusions from such overwhelming weight of 
probability that it is practically equivalent to 
certainty. 

It is entirely conceivable, e.g., that Hanni- 
bal or some other celebrated character of an- 
tiquity is a historic myth, to employ a some- 
what paradoxical expression, is a character 
deliberately invented, a deception deliber- 
ately promulgated through centuries. It is 
impossible literally to demonstrate other- 
wise, yet the notion is so grossly improbable 
that it would not be tolerated by reasonable 
beings. More emphatically is it true of all 



THE CONDITIONS OF THE PROBLEM 13 



questions which from the nature of the case 
lie beyond the actual experience of humanity 
as we knozv it, that weight of inference and 
probability from the facts we do know is the 
determining factor in belief ; that, provided 
only we have that support which the nature 
of the problem renders possible, the fact that 
we cannot actually prove something is no 
reason for doubt or disbelief. All the the- 
ories of science rest upon the foregoing 
basis ; namely, they are not literally demon- 
strated, they are assumed and believed to be 
true because they are thought more readily 
than other theories to explain the facts. 
The atomic theory is in no wise the result of 
observation and experiment : the finest mi- 
croscope ever constructed never approxi- 
mated even to the detection of an individual 
atom or molecule. It is only an hypothesis, 
varying widely in its forms and interpreta- 
tion, which seems to cover the results of 
investigation better than any other fancy, 
especially than the old idea of matter as 
uniformly extended ; and this, too, in spite 
of irreconcilable contradictions into which 



14 THE ESSENTIAL MAN 

the theory, especially in its corpuscular form, 
ultimately falls.* 

Yet there are those who, never for a mo- 
ment doubting the certainty of these scien- 
tific hypotheses, ridicule philosophical, theo- 
logical and religious inferences drawn from 
much broader generalizations and areas of 
fact, and much more necessary and adequate 
for the explanation of the realities of the 
world and of man. Some even, who would 
fain disbelieve in God because the micro- 
scope has not discerned him in the recesses 
of space, would elevate the atom, as contain- 
ing the potency of all life, to the rank of 
Deity, forgetting somehow that no man hath 
seen // at any time. 

Thus the test — indeed, the indispensable 
requisite of any theory — is that it shall ex- 
plain the facts. And this explanation, too, 
must be more than arbitrary assertion, it 
must be rational and in accordance with the 

*For clear exposure of the inconsistencies of the idea of 
the atom and inhering forces, except as convenient symbol- 
ism in scientific formulae, see article by Professor Huxley, 
in Science Monthly, February, 1887. 

See also •' Cosmic Philosophy," by John Fiske, vol. i. 
pp. iv. et seq. 



THE CONDITIONS OF THE PROBLEM 1 5 

laws of thought. To assert something which 
is unthinkable, e.g., that so-called physical 
force is the cause of mental and moral life, 
is to abandon the realm of reason and law 
for that of magic. We may believe many 
things which we cannot comprehend, i.e. y 
thoroughly understand, for we cannot ex- 
pect to construe the universe in detail or to 
picture to ourselves infinity ; but that which 
we cannot conceive, which we cannot think, 
because it contradicts the very alphabet of 
thought, we must necessarily reject. There 
is no other criterion, no other basis of knowl- 
edge. This distinction between the ability 
to conceive or think something and the 
power to comprehend it, a distinction very 
frequently ignored, is of the greatest im- 
portance in seeking truth. A mystery is not 
a contradiction or something belief in which 
is inconceivable ; it is rather something be- 
lief in which contravenes no law of thought, 
rests, indeed, upon rational grounds, but very 
little of which we can comprehend on ac- 
count of the limits of our powers or of our 
present knowledge. 

In considering, then, the question of im- 



1 6 THE ESSENTIAL MAN 

mortality in the light of reason, with no 
reference to any claimed revelation or to the 
assumed direct evidence of spiritism, the 
question is clearly one of inference from all 
we know of the nature and constitution of 
man and the world. Our only purely imme- 
diate or direct knowledge, moreover, is that 
of the states and processes of our own minds. 
That mediate or indirect knowledge, in 
which, of course, we have the greatest con- 
fidence, comes from the cognition of the ex- 
ternal world through the physical senses, and 
the subsequent generalization and elabora- 
tion of these results and of the immediate 
knowledge of our own minds by the reason- 
ing faculty. Our ultimate beliefs, then, 
whether pertaining to things physical, men- 
tal, moral or spiritual, must be rational in- 
ferences from this immediate and mediate 
knowledge of mankind. These inferences 
or theories, before they can attain the rank of 
well-grounded beliefs, must be shown to be 
consistent in themselves, and to explain best 
all the facts of life considered as a totality, 
to be thus, to a certain extent, a rational 
necessity. Such proof, indeed, while not 



THE CONDITIONS OF THE PROBLEM 1 7 

strictly demonstrative, may often reach prac- 
tical certainty, for we must believe in the 
consistency and rationality of the universe ; 
and the theory which is shown to be neces- 
sary to or most in harmony with this convic- 
tion must command our assent, while all 
others which leave any portion of the facts 
regarding man and the world unexplained, 
unexplainable, or perhaps contradictory, can 
lay no claim to our acceptance. 



CHAPTER II. 

THE NATURE OF MAN. 

A blow on the head produces unconscious- 
ness, where is the soul ? Such is the ques- 
tion sometimes asked by those who have not 
thought deeply and thoroughly on the facts 
and problems of life. It must be said first 
that "whereness" has no pertinence to 
things mental. It were clearly frivolous and 
meaningless to seek the location in space of 
thought, emotion, affection. These realities 
are plainly non-spatial. They exist with no 
reference to space, under which category 
only that falls which is apprehended by 
the physical senses. Applied to mental and 
moral phenomena, location and extension are 
unthinkable, — i.e. y absurd. It is thus equally 
without pertinence and significance to speak 
of that which produces the thought, affec- 
tion, and feeling, namely, the individual 
mind, as having in itself purely local and 
spatial relations. The rational significance 



THE NATURE OF MAN 1 9 

of the foregoing question, so far as it has 
such, in other words, what the inquirer 
really means, is this ; in view of the fact 
of unconsciousness under certain conditions, 
what evidence is there of the real and inde- 
pendent existence of the soul ? 

It may be remarked, first, that the one 
and the only thing proved by the fact of 
unconsciousness is that under certain condi- 
tions the • mind or soul does not manifest 
itself as usual in conjunction with certain 
bodily activities. The inaction of the mind 
even — much less its non-existence — is not 
involved in the known facts. The most that 
can be said is that persons afterward do 
not remember intellection during the period, 
though cases are on record of reverse char- 
acter, in which there was distinct recollec- 
tion of mental process or experience. All 
which unconsciousness and other effects of 
physical accident or disease upon the mind 
prove is simply the close connection and 
correlation of body and mind in the present 
state of existence, nothing more. 

The fact that the mind is, to a certain ex- 
tent and under certain conditions, depend- 



2 THE ESSENTIAL MAN 

ent on the state of the body, taken by itself 
alone, is compatible, of course, with the 
theory that mind is the direct product of 
matter, the soul, of the physical organism. 
But it is also thoroughly compatible with the 
other theory that mind and body are both 
equally realities connected and correlated for 
the time. Being thus compatible and consist- 
ent with both theories, i.e., precisely what 
would be expected if either were true, it 
proves nothing whatever in regard to the va- 
lidity of either, as to final choice between them. 
This must be determined by other facts. 
And when the other series of phenomena is 
observed, the effects of the mind upon the 
physical organism, e.g., the superinduction 
of bodily paralysis through a mental shock, 
when, further, that large area of discovery is 
considered in which the mind's relative in- 
dependence of common physical limitation 
under certain conditions is established, then 
the adduction of the fact of the intimate 
association of body and mind in their pres- 
ent state as proof of the non-reality of mind 
becomes irrational, and out of all harmony 
with the scientific method. 



THE NATURE OF MAN 2 1 

There are, in general, two theories or ideas 
of the nature of man, the one that he is 
a body, the other that he is a soul. The for- 
mer regards all mental phenomena as only 
highly refined and somewhat mysterious 
products of the nervous organism. The lat- 
ter sees in the operations and phenomena of 
mind that which by no possibility, either in 
thought or in fact, can be resolved into 
material elements or measured by material 
forces, and is thus constrained, on the prin- 
ciple that every effect must have adequate 
cause, to postulate as that cause another 
real existence, which we call mind or spirit, 
which is the man, though for the time being 
connected with a physical organism and in 
interaction with it. 

The former theory is materialism, includ- 
ing materialistic agnosticism or practical ma- 
terialism. For, however the thought may 
be elaborated and concealed by a novel and 
ponderous nomenclature, all theories which 
make mind in the last analysis nothing more 
than the combined phenomena of a physical 
organism are essentially materialistic. All 
theories, on the other hand, which posit 



2 2 THE ESSENTIAL MAN 

something not the product of matter but of 
entirely diverse nature, as the subject of the 
mental, moral and spiritual energies of man, 
constitute in some form philosophic Spirit- 
ualism,* which ever has been and is to-day, 
the belief not only of the majority of all 
men, but also of the great majority of all 
thinkers. Mr. Herbert Spencer's philoso- 
phy, it may be remarked, seems to waver be- 
tween these two diverse theories, and in 
part to have the characteristics of each. In 
his derivation of everything by the gradual 
differentiation of the material homogeneous 
he lays a purely materialistic foundation ; 
yet by a happy subreption, a smuggling in of 
a truly psychical element where heretofore 
had been only faint impressions correspond- 
ing to the physical series, there suddenly 
appear the activity and energy of the self- 
conscious ego. 

All materialists claim, in general, that the 
relation of mind to body is that of the rain- 
bow to the cloud or of the harmony to the 
harp, that, as the harmony ceases when the 

*This must, of course, be sharply distinguished from 
Spiritism or Spiritualism in the modern mediumistic sense. 



THE NATURE OF MAN 23 



harp is broken, as the colors vanish when 
the cloud is shed, so all mental activities 
likewise disappear in the dissolution of the 
physical organism. 

Like many other attractive illustrations, 
these fail to illustrate. The colors of the 
rainbow are not essentially in the cloud, — 
only certain vibrations emanate therefrom : 
they are rather in the percipient eye and 
soul of the observer. Still more clearly is 
the harmony not in the harp, but in the ear 
and soul of man. Little imagination is re- 
quired also to think that, as the musician 
may find other means to manifest the sym- 
phonies of the soul, so the soul itself may 
find other agencies internal or external 
through which it may display its energies 
in continued life. It is needless to proffer 
extended argument in refutation of material- 
ism. The progress of science and the testi- 
mony of scientists have amply performed 
the task. The physical and the mental are 
simply incommensurable. No common unit 
can be found or imagined for them. It is 
indeed possible to express matter in terms 
of mind, but it is absolutely impossible to 



24 THE ESSENTIAL MAN 

express mind in terms of matter. A thing 
and a thought are as radically diverse in 
ultimate analysis to-day as in the age of 
Socrates, and will forever remain so ; for, as 
the late Professor Tyndall said, "The pas- 
sage from matter to mind is unthinkable." 
We can no more imagine an abstract thought 
or the moral sense construed in terms of 
motion or mass than we can conceive that 
three and three sometimes make seven. It 
is not simply incomprehensible, it is incon- 
ceivable : it is not a mystery, it is a contra- 
diction, an absurdity. 

Abundant statements could be adduced 
from the leading scientists and philosophers 
of our day, from those even who seemed not 
many years ago desirous of establishing 
some materialistic theory, to the utter in- 
adequacy of the assumption that mind can 
be the product of matter, for the explanation 
of the facts of life. In the words of John 
Fiske, the chief interpreter of Spencer in 
America, " The theory has been relegated 
to the limbo of absurdity." Even Ernst 
Haeckel, almost the only eminent scientist 
who adheres in name at least to materialism, 



THE NATURE OF MAX 25 

feels compelled to postulate soul-atoms in 
order to explain man, which, in whatever 
sense he may use the term, is a virtual sur- 
render of the claim that matter is the cause 
of mind. Indeed, it is a leading character- 
istic of this school of thought that they 
redefine matter, giving it all the qualities 
which are regarded as characteristics of 
spirit, and then think to have proved their 
claim, when they have really gone far toward 
its refutation. For, certainly, no one will 
quarrel with the spelling, if only the reality 
be granted. 

Further, we know ultimate realities or ex- 
istences only through their manifestations. 

We experience various phenomena through 
the physical senses, all of which are trans- 
mutable into each other under certain laws ; 
and we are compelled to assume an under- 
lying reality or cause which produces them, 
to which we give the name "matter" or 
"material." We experience, also, another 
class of phenomena, such as thought, feeling 
etc., entirely diverse from all forms of mate- 
rial energy, absolutely incommensurable with 
it, the expression of which in terms of any 



26 THE ESSENTIAL MAN 

material unit is unthinkable ; and therefore, 
by the law which demands adequate cause 
for every event, we are compelled to postu- 
late another reality or existence as the 
cause of this series of phenomena, viz., — 
mind or spirit. There is precisely the same 
ground for postulating spirit as for postulat- 
ing matter, indeed, more ; for we may at 
least conceive, it is a thinkable proposition, 
that the appearance of an outer world may 
be simply an effect entirely within our minds, 
a sort of orderly hallucination or phantasma- 
goria, while it is entirely inconceivable that 
external things should produce the thought 
which perceives, apprehends, and classifies 
them. Of course, one may persist in assert- 
ing that the brain itself alone thinks ; but he 
may with equal propriety affirm that plants 
or stones think, for they are all alike mate- 
rial, simply in different grades of organiza- 
tion. Anything as a dogmatic assertion is 
possible. Any theory is possible as a voli- 
tion, as something which we elect to believe, 
shutting our eyes to the plainest facts, with- 
out considering or even listening to the ar- 
guments of those who may disagree with us ; 



THE NATURE OF MAN 27 

but this is not rationality, it is bigotry, as 
often, too, the bigotry of unbelief as of belief. 

All which the investigations of mind and 
brain have accomplished, simply confirm or 
indicate in greater degree what was known 
and freely admitted before ; namely, that 
mind and body in their present state are 
most intimately connected, and also that, 
while for ordinary acts of sensation and per- 
ception there is corresponding nerve change, 
i.e., in those spheres in which the mind 
comes in direct contact with the outside 
world, yet, on the other hand, in those 
realms least connected with the physical, in 
abstract thought, mental synthesis, volition, 
imagination etc., accompanying nerve action 
is very doubtful, at most utterly unproved. 

No one, however, for a moment denies 
the interaction of the brain and the unit-sub- 
ject of mental action ; and however much of 
its detail may be discovered is of no signifi- 
cance whatever in the interests of material- 
ism. Science of itself alone has shown that 
the brain cannot be the cause of mind, which 
is as far as science in its limited sphere can 
go ; and this is of the highest value in the 



28 THE ESSENTIAL MAN 

question of the nature and destiny of man. 
Says John Fiske,* " The Platonic view of 
the soul as a spiritual substance,! as an efflu- 
ence from Godhood which under certain 
conditions becomes incarnate in perishable 
forms of matter, is doubtless the view most 
consonant with the present state of our 
knowledge." 

Not only thus is it clear that there is some 
element in man beside what we call matter 
and force which is not their product, as is 
admitted by the leading men of science, 
but in this other element are found the high- 
est and distinctive characteristics of man, 
all his intellectual and moral faculties. The 
greatest reality of the universe is Mind ; 
greater than all which is known is the power 
which knows ; greater than all the wonders 
of the heavens is the intellect which dis- 
covers and comprehends. 

The most direct and real objects of our 
knowledge, moreover, are our own thought 
and feelings ; and only through the action 

*" Destiny of Man," chap. v. p. i. 

t The word " substance " is here used in its philosophi- 
cal sense, of course, as an essence or reality, not in the 
popular signification of something of material nature. 



THE NATURE OF MAN 29 

of our minds do we reach knowledge of the 
external world around us. Writes Huxley : 
" Matter and force are, so far as we know, 
mere names for certain forms of conscious- 
ness. Thus it is an indisputable truth that 
what we call the material world is only 
known to us under form of the ideal world. 
Our knowledge of the soul is more intimate 
and certain than our knowledge of the body." 
He, then, who denies the realities of mind 
by assuming that brain material is the true 
cause of mental phenomena denies that of 
which he has direct, immediate and perpet- 
ual knowledge in favor of something which 
is known only through the power of this 
very mind, this mind the reality of which 
is thus strangely denied in favor of one of 
its most remote and uncertain theories.* 

The most profound researches into the 
nature of man only confirm the native in- 
stincts and clear consciousness of man him- 
self, that the essence of his being is imma- 
terial, that, however wondrously associated 
with a physical organism, he is a soul. 

*For a powerful exposition of the astonishing paradox 
of materialism, see Professor Ladd's " Physiological Psy- 
chology," Part III., chap, iv., paragraphs 5 and 6. 



CHAPTER III. 

THE PERSISTENCE OF THE MIND OR SOUL. 

What we call spirit and spiritual faculties 
and energy are not the product of matter or 
material forces. This, science itself has 
demonstrated. That, however, as two paral- 
lel lines are assumed to meet at infinity, so 
the streams of mental and material energy 
may be from some common source in the 
recesses of infinitude, of course no one would 
deny. This is substantially the tenet of all 
philosophies and all religions, involved in 
the very notion of emanation or creation. 
In the realm of phenomena, however, in the 
finite manifestations of the Absolute, they 
are originally and forever distinct, diverse 
and irreducible or inconvertible, the one into 
the other. The only possible logical alter- 
native is some form of idealism, according 
to which mind or spirit alone exists as a 
reality. 

Being thus independent in essence, sui 



THE PERSISTENCE OF THE MIND OR SOUL 3 1 

generis, we must inquire next whether the 
nature of mind or spirit be such that we 
may believe it to persist or endure. A sacred 
doctrine of modern science is " the conser- 
vation of energy,"* — that no force in the 
universe is lost, but the amount remains con- 
stant, no thing or force being annihilated. 
This must apply equally to mental or spirit- 
ual energy, or, more accurately, to the entity 
or substratum which produces it. 

If we must attribute this sort of energy 
to some other than matter, then this other 
through the same universal law must persist 
in some form.f As we must think, then, 

* Force is only the abstract term by which we designate 
the way in which things or entities act. Philosophically, 
then, the " conservation of energy " amounts to this, — that, 
under the same conditions, things act in the same way ; 
and, the conditions changing, the conditions of other 
things so change, through universal interrelation and inter- 
action, that they act differently also, but in a mutually 
compensatory manner, so that the balance and stability of 
the entire universe are maintained. 

t In the application of this law, moreover, we find con- 
firmation of the conclusion of the preceding chapter. In 
the circuit of brain movement all the physical or nerve 
force is accounted for. None disappears into the mental 
realm, as would necessarily be the case, were physical 



32 . THE ESSENTIAL MAN 

of the spirit or of that which is the source 
of mental manifestation, whatever one may- 
name it, as persisting, in what form must 
we regard this persistence or continuance ? 
If there is a third something besides matter 
and force, as Huxley admits, which is con- 
sciousness or its foundation, what conclusion 
may we draw from its nature in regard to it, 
when it is no longer in intimate correlation 
and connection with a bodily organism ? 

The essence, the prime factor of all men- 
tality, of all manifestations of spirit, is self- 
energy transmuted into mental activity. The physical 
circuit is complete, nothing gained, nothing lost. Still 
further, we know that the higher material energies, chemi- 
cal affinity, etc., are equivalent to an enormous amount of 
force expressed in terms of mass or traction; and, the 
higher and more subtle these energies, the greater the 
amount in such expression. If, then, mental energy were 
only the highest form of physical energy, as it would be, 
were it the product of matter, then, on the effect called 
death, these higher forces would be reduced or re-trans- 
formed into lower forms, for no physical force can be anni- 
hilated; and there would be of necessity a great influx of 
material energy from this source. But there is no such 
reappearance or addition of material energy from the 
event of death, and there can be no other conclusion than 
that the spiritual phenomena of man are the product of 
something other than matter. 



THE PERSISTENCE OF THE MIND OR SOUL $$ 

consciousness. Thought implies a thinker 
who is conscious both of himself and his own 
thought activities.* These are the simple 
facts of human experience, as with no theory 
in mind, we look in upon our own mental 
life. This power of abstraction and intro- 
spection, of thinking of one's own thought, 
involved in self-consciousness, is the basis 
not only of all intellection, but also of moral- 
ity and religion, — of all, in truth, which 
makes man man. 

* The theory that the thought is the thinker, suggested 
by Professor James, seems, in any common signification of 
the terms, absurd. As force is only the abstract name by 
which we designate certain manifestations of things or 
what things do, so thought, or intelligence, is only the ab- 
stract term for what something — a spiritual entity or 
whatever one may choose to call it — does; and a single 
thought is one act of such entity. Thought, or intelli- 
gence, is a faculty of mind, not mind itself. To regard 
mind as a series of thoughts is to deny its existence. In- 
deed, the very term we use, " series," would be on that as- 
sumption an impossibility. Thought is the product of an 
entity of some sort. To claim it as the result of brain- 
material is to assert the absurd and unthinkable. To 
claim that it is the thinker is to assert what is contradic- 
tory both to the facts of consciousness and the laws of 
thought itself. In other words, it is suicidal of all knowl- 
edge ; whatever else science and philosophy may do, they 
can never court self-destruction. 



34 THE ESSENTIAL MAN 

By virtue of self-consciousness, too, the 
human spirit is the sole type of pure unity, 
the one in the manifold. Through its mar- 
vellous power the past and present and 
future, their experience, their realities, their 
prophecies are one in conscious thought. 
That some essence abides through all the 
stream of mental experience is proved also 
by the simple nature of a seines or succession, 
by the fact that we recognize our mental life 
as a series of states. For a series implies 
something constant, abiding throughout, 
which apprehends each unit in turn, con- 
joining them in thought as a succession. If 
each individual thought be held to be all 
there is, if the existence of a subject mind 
of which the thought is but the manifesta- 
tion is denied, then any idea of succession 
would be impossible : each thought would be 
the mind while it lasted, but with no knowl- 
edge of anything other than itself, and no 
knowledge of itself in relation to any other 
thought ; for this would imply and necessitate 
some permanent subject of both thoughts 
which compared them, which contradicts the 
theory, for by hypothesis the first thought 



THE PERSISTENCE OF THE MIND OR SOUL 35 

involved all which could be called mind. 
Travelling in a railway coach, one could by 
no possibility recognize several trains pass- 
ing the same spot before and after his own, 
as a succession or series. His knowledge 
and observation would be confined entirely 
to the train in which he is. No more, if the 
mind were simply a series of conscious states, 
or each thought the thinker, each separate 
thought constituting the entire mind, could 
there ever be consciousness of different 
states, i.e., of experience, or, indeed, of the 
single state as such ; for this involves the 
differentiation of the mind as a whole from 
its individual states, which on this theory is 
impossible, for according thereto one state 
is for the time being the entire mind. All 
the so-called series in the external world, 
too, are known to us only through a corre- 
sponding series of mental perceptions or 
cognitive states; i.e., they have become such 
a series only through the synthetic or com- 
bining action of the unit-mind. Thus the 
very fact that we can speak of the mind as 
a series of conscious states proves it to be 
more than this, to be a unit which recog- 



36 THE ESSENTIAL MAN 

nizes the succession, otherwise the word 
"series" would not be found in the human 
vocabulary. We must admit thus the reality 
of the unit-subject of which self-conscious- 
ness is the fundamental manifestation, or, in 
other words, the personal soul or spirit. 

It were folly, then, to doubt that, if con- 
servation of energy be a law of the universe, 
it obtains above all in that realm where we 
find the transcendent manifestation of the 
finite world, the sole type of perfect oneness 
or unity, and that which, from the point of 
view of independence as well as that of true 
unity, is more than aught else entitled to the 
term "reality/' namely the self-conscious 
soul.* 

But it may be asked, although self-con- 
sciousness, as we have seen in regard to all 
forms of mental life, cannot be the product 

* In the material world we find no example of true unity, 
the one in the manifold. There are aggregation, cohesion, 
the organic relation of the plant; but only in the self-con- 
scious spirit is the idea of unity properly realized. Only 
from the experience of self-consciousness, in truth, do we 
gain the conception ; and then by the synthetic power of 
the mind (a power itself a proof of its unity) we apply it 
popularly to those material forms in the world without, 
which maintain a relative identity. 



THE PERSISTENCE OF THE MIND OR SOUL 37 

of the nerve material of the brain, may it not 
be the effect of interaction between this ma- 
terial and some other entity, unconscious 
spirit or will, for example, to employ a para- 
doxical expression sometimes heard ? This 
cannot be ; for self-consciousness, which is 
the recognition of the ego y the /, could not 
be the product of two independent entities. 
Self-recognition must be, in the nature of the 
case, the recognition by itself of one entity 
only, a unity ; and, as the material of the 
brain (allowing that it possesses unity, which 
is hardly conceivable) is out of the ques- 
tion as the efficient source of mentality, this 
entity or unity, which recognizes itself, must 
be spiritual, what we call the personal 
spirit.* This may be and doubtless is, 
under certain circumstances, aroused into 
activity by interaction with the cerebral 
nerve matter, just as later various mental 
powers are developed by contact with the 
external world ; but the cause of its mani- 

* In this connection the remark by one of the greatest 
of modern psychologists, Lotze, has profound significance : 
" The mind is a real unit-being, not simply because it ap- 
pears to itself as such, but chiefly because it appears to it- 
self at all." 



$8 THE ESSENTIAL MAN 

festation, the sole possessor of this faculty 
of self-consciousness, the entity of which 
this characteristic is the direct and essential 
exponent, must be a spiritual unit.* That 
in the present state the personal spirit comes 
into activity and is developed in correlation 
with physical forces of the brain is of course 
evident ; but that under no other conditions 
could this have been the case, or, what is 
more important for us, that under no other 
conditions can this spirit, the true source 
of all mental manifestation, once developed, 
maintain itself, pursue its inherent activities, 
or continue its development, is a proposition 
in the highest degree untenable.! Its own 
strength and possibility as the greatest 

*For the same reasons the crude idea sometimes ex- 
pressed, that self-consciousness is the result of interaction 
between the brain and a sort of general or universal intelli- 
gence, is absurd. In fact, the expression, " general intelli- 
gence," as an entity of any kind, is meaningless. Only as 
an abstract term expressing the sum of phenomena of 
many or all individual minds has the term any significance. 

t Says John Stuart Mill, a man whom certainly no one 
could accuse of traditional or emotional prejudice, "We 
may suppose that the same thoughts, emotions, volitions 
and even sensations, which we have here, may persist or 
recommence somewhere else under other conditions." 



THE PERSISTENCE OF THE MIND OR SOUL 39 

reality of the finite world render such a con- 
clusion not only unnecessary, but extremely 
improbable, if not, as we may see later, actu- 
ally irrational. 

The independence of mind, moreover, is 
attested by the well-established phenomena 
of hypnotism, mind-reading, telepathy etc., 
perhaps by those of clairvoyance and clair- 
audience also. Whatever else these may 
or may not show, they emphasize the reality 
of mind or soul ; they clearly demonstrate 
that it acts and perceives sometimes other- 
wise than through the so-called physical 
senses, that occasionally even, as in case of 
telepathy, it seems above limitations of space. 
These strange phenomena certainly are not 
supernatural in the common acceptation of 
the term. No doubt, if thoroughly under- 
stood, they would seem as natural as com- 
mon events. But, extra - natural as they 
appear to us at present, they bear abundant 
witness to the existence of mind as an active 
being, to its ability under some circum- 
stances or conditions to transcend the lim- 
itations of the physical organism, while still 
in general correlated with it ; and thus they 



40 THE ESSENTIAL MAN 

furnish substantial proof that the mind is 
not limited in its operations by those 
methods by which, in general, it discerns 
facts of the outer world and communicates 
with other minds. In truth, the reading of 
one mind by another, and communication of 
mind with mind, sometimes at great distance, 
communication which seems entirely super- 
spatial, — and these are phenomena as well 
attested as many accepted so-called scientific 
facts and theories,* — attest in most direct 
manner the probability that the human spirit, 
not confined in its activities, even in this 
life, to the medium of the physical senses 
and the limits of its physical environment, 
will be able to find means in its own nature 
and through its own power to exercise its 
mental and spiritual functions in a super- 
terrestrial condition. 

Thus, by investigation into the facts of 
consciousness and life after the inductive or 
scientific method, we find that man is essen- 

* For details of phenomena of this character see articles 
in the Arena by Rev. M. J. Savage ; also, a recent work by 
the same author and reports of various psychological 
societies. 



THE PERSISTENCE OF THE MIND OR SOUL 4 1 

tially a soul, and that the nature of the soul 
(or man) is such that its persistence seems 
a natural and logical conclusion. We find 
this indicated by the general principles of all 
being and force, by the unity and transcen- 
dent characteristics and also the peculiar 
^^/-independent manifestations, of the soul 
itself. 

In a rational system, however, all parts are 
interrelated, and the function of each can be 
determined and understood only by the com- 
prehension of the nature and meaning of the 
whole. While looking merely at the intrin- 
sic nature of spirit, then, we may infer there- 
from its persistence and permanence, to 
gain a rational insight into its purpose and 
its destiny, we must investigate the nature, 
relations and development of the entire sys- 
tem to which it belongs and of which it is a 
part. The implications thus involved it will 
be the aim of the next chapter to unfold. 



CHAPTER IV. 

THE NATURE OF THE UNIVERSE. 

From an ethical point of view the universe 
may be regarded theoretically in three ways, 
as moral, as ////moral, as immoral. Accord- 
ing to the first view there exist in the uni- 
verse the everlasting distinctions of true and 
false, right and wrong, righteousness and 
iniquity ; and, these existing not only as dis- 
tinctions but as practical realizations, the 
world-movement is toward the vindication, 
triumph and complete supremacy of right- 
eousness and its corollary, happiness. 

According to the third view there would 
be involved the same distinctions ; but the 
trend, the aim, and the result would be ex- 
actly the reverse. 

From the point of view of the second 
possibility, an unmoral universe, these dis- 
tinctions do not really exist, or, if they seem 
to be, are illusions, products of the fancy or 
imagination fostered by ignorance, and to be 



THE NATURE OF THE UNIVERSE 43 

dispelled by investigation and progressive 
knowledge. This theory, of course, always 
presupposes the original or ultimate power 
of the universe to be matter or material in 
some form, wherefore the ideas of a supposed 
right and wrong are only transient hallucina- 
tions of man, himself but an ephemeral prod- 
uct of this material energy, a sort of whim 
of nature or caprice of the atom. Freedom 
of choice, then, is equally illusive ; and the 
universe is only a gigantic machine, formed 
and put in motion by chance, and evolving, 
after vast periods of time, a colossal system 
of illusion or deception from which man can 
be emancipated only by gracefully admitting 
himself to be an automaton whose highest 
functions and aspirations are the measure 
and mockery of his intrinsic nothingness, 
and, speaking from the point of view of his 
illusory instincts, of his degradation. In 
brief, this unconscious, unintelligent and 
therefore necessarily unrational and unmoral 
power acts as if it were rational, intelligent, 
purposeful and moral. Any one, in truth, 
who can accept as satisfactory, from philo- 
sophical and personal points of view, this 



44 THE ESSENTIAL MAN 

conglomerate of contradiction, magic, credu- 
lity, inconceivability, self-abasement and de- 
spair, contravenes alike the principles of 
reason and the instincts of humanity. That 
it is ever entertained in the abstract, indeed, 
must be attributed charitably to the fact that 
its implications, either through inattention 
or lack of logical insight, are not realized. 

Whether any one confessedly and in reality 
hold to the third possible theory, that of an 
immoral universe, i.e., one in which the 
Infinite Intelligence or Power is unholy, 
unrighteous, and works in man and the 
world for the triumph of evil, may well be 
doubted. Those who regard life as essen- 
tially evil, who, in short, adopt as a philoso- 
phy some form of pessimism, almost invaria- 
bly conjoin with it some atheistic theory, 
thus saving, as it were, the heart at the ex- 
pense of the head. For, while the notion of 
an evil spirit as the indwelling presence of 
the world shocks even the mind callous to 
the common aspirations of man, it is at least 
logical and consistent with the accompany- 
ing interpretation of life ; but, on the other 
hand, the idea of a world arranged on in- 



THE NATURE OF THE UNIVERSE 45 

telligent principles tending naturally and 
through intricate laws of the human consti- 
tution to the unhappiness of man is incom- 
patible with the assumption that blind force 
is the cause of all things.* 

From these negative conclusions, then, as 
well as from the common and universal in- 
stincts and experience of man and society, 
an adequate discussion of which would be a 
social, ethical and religious history of the 
race, the world is clearly upon a moral basis. 
The moral law, with its eternal distinctions, 
exists and exists within, and, practically, if 
not theoretically, in the view of all, above 
man. And, indeed, however subtle and cir- 
cuitous the explanation of its origin and ex- 

*In the philosophy of Schopenhauer, the prince of pes- 
simists, the Will which he postulates as the Supreme Real- 
ity, is not in nature what one would infer from the common 
acceptation and use of the word ; namely, the faculty by 
which rational beings exercise the power of choice. The 
actual content of the term as determined by his system is 
more nearly what we should express by " energy." The 
word "will" is unclear, to say the least, since it is plain 
from his thought that this power is in itself devoid of con- 
sciousness, and therefore perforce of intelligence ; and the 
expression "unconscious will " is contradictory and mean- 
ingless. 



46 THE ESSENTIAL MAN 

istence by some, no one denies the fact, and 
few, its plain and natural implications.* 

Now, in a universe of intellectual and 
moral progress we look for certain conditions 
and characteristics, without which, indeed, 
progressive life would be impossible ; among 
these, truthful instincts and intuitions, possi- 
ble means of satisfaction of desire, aspira- 
tions which lead sooner or later to fulfilment. 
Otherwise, if the universe in its secret moni- 
tions whispered not the truth to us, if the 
energizing desires of man were forever with- 
out realization, if aspiration were only the 
idle breath of the soul, its satisfaction but a 
mirage of the sea, then not only were hope 
vain, but progress also were impossible. The 
heart of man, no more than the intellect, can 
long feed on stubble ; and the universe which 
did not, by its own nature, sanction the ethi- 

*The materialistic explanations of the origin of the 
moral faculty all ignore or tacitly assume the very element 
which they claim to derive from lower faculties. See 
essay on " The Philosophy of Religion," " In Spirit and in 
Truth," George H. Ellis, publisher, Boston. 

The existence of the moral nature in man, too, affords 
one of the most powerful and conclusive arguments for 
Christian theism. See Flint's " Theism," chap. vii. 



THE NATURE OF THE UNIVERSE 47 

cal and mental impulses of the soul, could 
never develop or, having developed, sustain 
the fabric of human society. 

We perceive first that there is substan- 
tially universal belief that death does not end 
personal existence. While individuals may 
affirm the contrary and many races may have 
held or hold crude- and mystical notions of 
the future, the essence of belief in continued 
life is in every race and among all peoples. 
Here is a fact to be explained. Whence this 
belief, the very audacity of which is said by 
some to be its strongest proof ? The alleged 
explanations of materialistic evolution, while 
they may show a possible external condition 
under which in certain races the conception 
took definite form, solve nothing in reference 
to the original tendency of the mind to the 
development of this belief, still less concern- 
ing the purpose and significance, in a moral 
universe, of such inherent instincts and ten- 
dencies in man. 

There is, also, what is called the feeling of 
immortality, the vividness of which is some- 
what a matter of temperament, a sense of 
deathlessness, which to the individual may 



48 THE ESSENTIAL MAN 

be the solution of the whole question. 
Whence this feeling ? It may have little 
significance as a feeling to those, at least, 
who have not experienced it ; but surely, on 
scientific principles alone, we must regard it 
as produced or developed by some corre- 
sponding environment, and on a moral basis 
surely as a response to something in the 
rational constitution of the universe. 

We notice, furthermore, that things are 
adapted to opportunities of use. The eye 
is framed to see, or, to speak in the manner 
of evolution, the fact that there are things to 
be seen has caused the vision of man to de- 
velop. So with the sense of fear, with love, 
with a hundred instincts, faculties and attri- 
butes of man. We notice, too, that animals 
have just those instincts and propensities 
which seem to correspond with their envi- 
ronment, exactly fitted to bring full measure 
of possible contentment and satisfaction. 

Now, if this world were all, what in like 
manner and by analogy should we expect to 
find in man ? An infancy much less help- 
less, a round of utilitarian instincts which 
would guide him unerringly to physical wel- 



THE NATURE OF THE UNIVERSE 49 

fare, a prudential shrewdness which would 
enable him to make his way in the world, 
but with no particular aspiration after knowl- 
edge beyond its application to mere sub- 
sistence, with no yearning for wisdom, no 
longing to know the mysteries of God, no 
desire for existence for its own sake, for 
the possibilities of progress and attainment 
which it brings with it, no sublime religious 
inspirations which tell him he is more than 
of the earth earthy, no inwrought convic- 
tion from savage to sage of something 
which shall come after, of immortality. Such 
would be man after the analogy of the ani- 
mal creation, were this world his sole envi- 
ronment. But what is he ? All history 
answers ; the strivings of man embodied in 
a score of profound philosophies to know 
what and why we are, the forty-five hundred 
books which have been written on the sub- 
ject of a future life alone, the deep inspira- 
tion of every human heart, and the refrain of 
every soul to the vast unknown of creation 
attest what man actually is. Is it likely that 
the correspondence between faculty and ap- 
plication, between adaptation and opportu- 



50 THE ESSENTIAL MAN 

nity, between means and ends, the harmony 
of living beings with their environment, fails 
here at its highest point ? Is it not vastly 
more probable, a necessary conception, in- 
deed, if we are to judge man in his entire 
being after the scientific method, that, in a 
large yet real sense, the spiritual universe, 
the undiscovered country, is a part of his 
environment, that these intimations, these 
aspirations, this power of almost endless 
progress, these sublime faculties of man cor- 
respond with reality and opportunity the 
same as through all the lower spheres of 
creation, correspond in a measure even 
here with the realities of higher and con- 
tinued life ? 

The power and possibilities of man, the 
nature and capacity of the soul indicate his 
fitness for a longer existence than the three- 
score and ten of earthly life. Man at death, 
indeed, seems only at the beginning of his 
intellectual and spiritual development and 
power. But why this fitness, why this belief 
in immortality common to the race, why this 
desire and capacity for knowledge and prog- 
ress, if earth be all ? Is it a mockery ? Is it 



THE NATURE OF THE UNIVERSE 5 1 

a divine illusion ? Is the Creator a humorist 
or maladroit? Is hope inspired in man, that 
he may think himself to be what he is not ? 
Is life part farce, part tragedy, never a di- 
vine reality? Man cannot believe it. It 
would seem not only the true religious be- 
lief, but that of philosophy and science as 
well, that fitness and harmony permeate 
creation, that our intuitions and inspirations 
are the reflection of truth, that this is in 
depth and in reality, as it is in common act 
and theory, a moral universe. 

But it is frequently said that these and 
similar considerations lose much of their 
force when we have once realized that the 
object of the world-process is clearly the ulti- 
mate happiness and development of the race, 
of humanity. Nature, it is alleged, cares 
nothing for the individual, everything for 
the type. She is mindful, not of the person, 
but of the generation, and thus labors 
toward the supreme end, the perfection of 
life. 

The incidental objections to this theory 
are not few. It is certainly a laborious and 
wasteful process which continually inspires, 



52 THE ESSENTIAL MAN 

deludes and finally annihilates those in 
whom rests the germ of all possible develop- 
ment, in order that there may continuously 
appear a comparative few (in contrast with 
the ever-increasing multitude who have pre- 
ceded them) on a somewhat higher scale of 
knowledge and power. There is, certainly, 
no satisfaction for the heart therein. It 
were truly the irony of attenuated sentiment 
to ask men to find their joy and purpose in 
the increased happiness of some stranger 
generation centuries hence, which, equally 
ephemeral, must find its satisfaction also in 
the thought and vision of those who shall 
still come after. But the whole theory col- 
lapses in the face of science alone. No sci- 
entific prophecy or even doctrine is more 
firmly established, none commands so uni- 
versal assent, none, indeed, is more thor- 
oughly confirmed by the facts of the physical 
world, than the ultimate cessation of the 
existence of the cosmos in its present state, 
and the consequent destruction and end of 
humanity in its physical form and career. 
On this theory, thus, the purpose and goal 
of the ages is nothing. The earth shall re- 



THE NATURE OF THE UNIVERSE 53 

turn at last to its original nebula or wander 
a barren, heatless, lifeless ball. Everything 
will be as if it had not been. The cycle of 
evolution with its myriad adaptations, its 
variety and fertility of resource, its ages of 
toil, travail, aspiration and achievement, will 
be only a bubble on the sea of chaos ; and 
the universe will have developed by chance 
or strange design that which in its greatness 
and grandeur could construe its motion and 
read its laws, that in which alone its beauties 
and its glories found real existence, — the 
human spirit, — only mercilessly to destroy 
forever this priceless product of its mys- 
terious handiwork. 

The entire process of evolution, moreover, 
as we learn, has been directed apparently 
toward the development of the mental and 
spiritual in man. After the construction, 
elaboration and adaptation of his physical 
being, the inwrought energies of the world 
seem, as it were, to have changed their 
course and to be in the present era working 
toward the perfection of the human spirit. 
That all this is a wanton process — rational 
and purposeful in appearance, yet only an 



54 THE ESSENTIAL MAN 

accidental play of primitive atoms, seemingly 
the work of Infinite Intelligence, yet only a 
freak of nature in the mind of man, who 
himself is not mind or spirit, but a fortuitous 
combination of matter — is preposterous and 
absurd. Either the universe has no mean- 
ing whatever or its energies move to some 
goal commensurate with its struggle and 
travail. This goal cannot be the perpetual 
existence of the earth and man in their pres- 
ent state. If this be possible, all scientific 
knowledge is false from its inception. On 
its fundamental laws and principles this is 
impossible. The time must come when the 
earth shall no longer be as the habitation of 
life. The goal, if there be such, must be 
the creation and development of man's spir- 
itual nature, of immortal souls, of that di- 
vine spark which, while correlated in its 
development on earth with perishable forms 
of matter, may yet in that last day, in the 
words of Thomas Campbell, 

" The darkening universe defy 
To quench his immortality 
Or shake his trust in God." 



THE NATURE OF THE UNIVERSE 55 

This argument, indeed, from economy, 
from teleology, from the rational conviction 
inherent in all minds not steeped in the 
blackest pessimism, that the universe exists 
for some supreme end and realization, loses 
nothing, the rather gains in force, when the 
older ideas of creation are displaced by the 
modern belief in creation by evolution. 

Of man's fitness for persistent and pro- 
gressive life there can be no question. His 
capacity for development of mind and soul 
seems boundless. Man alone, too, possesses 
this power. The difference, it has been said 
in the interests of some evolutionary theory, 
is less between the animal and the savage 
than between the savage and the sage, (a 
claim true, if we view only superficial mani- 
festations, but false, if we look to the inner 
germ of being, which can be known only by 
its ultimate fruits) yet by this fact alone 
is demonstrated the enormous and perpetual 
capacity for development in man. 

Occasionally we hear, it may be, of one 
who is tired of life, dreads, perhaps, the 
thought of continued existence. But the 
cause of these feelings is not life itself, but 



56 THE ESSENTIAL MAN 

life under certain restricted, possibly painful, 
conditions. Animals fear death : man loves 
life, and the natural and normal soul always 
will love it. 

" Whatever crazy sorrow saith, 
No life that breathes with human breath 
Has ever truly longed for death. 

'Tis life of which our nerves are scant, 
O life, not death, for which we pant, 
More life and fuller that we want." 

If the universe have any meaning, it 
means the creation and persistence of some- 
thing which shall fulfil its purpose, and 
glorify the Almighty Power in whom all 
things move and have their being. If it 
mean anything, too, the lines of rationality 
and purpose written in its history are lines 
of truth, which the reason of man may ap- 
prehend and hold fast in belief and faith. 
If, moreover, this reason, this faith, these 
aspirations, these possibilities of man be 
not pure mockery and magic, — magic be- 
cause thus no adequate cause could be dis- 
cerned through which they should have 
come into existence, mockery because, if 



THE NATURE OF THE UNIVERSE 57 

the cycle of all things is to end where it 
began, they are naught but terrible illusions, 
qualities without object or counterpart in 
the constitution of things, — then we may 
rest secure in the conviction that, when, 
as science tells us, the day shall come when 
earth shall roll a frigid, barren, lifeless 
waste, when "e'en the sun himself shall 
die/' and darkness pall the pathway of the 
stars, there will remain the kingdom of God, 
the spiritual world, as the crown of the long 
process of evolution, the purpose of creation, 
the consummation of righteousness, the rec- 
ompense and goal of the ages. 



CHAPTER V. 



PERSONAL BELIEF. 



The philosopher, Leibnitz, has said that 
men seldom really believe in such verities as 
God, Duty, Immortality etc., that, in most 
cases, the words are no more than algebraic 
characters, serving as a basis for reasoning, 
but bringing no object directly before the 
mind, and standing thus, we may add, for no 
experience. 

He even goes so far as to say in regard 
to the doctrine of immortality that few like 
to believe a future life possible. This last 
statement all would deny, I think, from the 
facts of experience. Now and then there is 
one, perhaps, whose evil tendencies arouse 
a fear of the future, the reality of which he 
may seek to combat or deny ; but to the 
great majority the thought of continued ex- 
istence is fraught with hope and inspiration. 

We cannot grant in truth without decided 
qualification the main thought of Leibnitz, 



PERSONAL BELIEF 59 



that men repeat the great moral and relig- 
ious doctrines merely as formulae without 
meaning and without direct connection with 

life. 

It is true that in certain minds there is a 
remoteness about all beliefs which do not 
rest on facts of a physical nature ; but with 
others, a much more numerous class, these 
religious beliefs come with all the more influ- 
ence and power because they rest upon the 
more solid foundation of internal experience, 
at least, they are the direct and logical in- 
ference of such experience, which is the most 
immediate of all knowledge, and which we 
recognize as a reality both in ourselves and 
in others. 

The conviction of immortality, however, 
we may admit, rests to a certain extent upon 
different grounds according to the tempera- 
ment and education of the individual. It 
may be largely a matter of the intellect or 
of the feeling, and in accordance with this 
distinction there may be said to be two 
general classes, the first in which the belief 
is primarily a theory, a rational inference 
from all the facts of life, the second in 



60 THE ESSENTIAL MAN 

which there exists what is termed the " in- 
stinct of immortality," producing of itself, 
apart from all discursive results, the con- 
viction of the deathlessness of the essential 
man, of the soul. Each class has its advan- 
tage. To him whose belief comes through 
the feeling alone it is certainly at first, at 
least, more of an every-day reality, yet the 
objections of the skeptic may shake his 
faith, certainly, he will be at loss to explain, 
at least to others, the ground of his confi- 
dence ; and the scenes of death around him, 
the silent form, the vanished life, the press- 
ing questions, where, whence, whither, in- 
evitably awaken sometimes a doubt if after 
all his belief be more than a pleasant fancy, 
a cheerful dream. 

It is no marvel that one holding this doc- 
trine only through tradition or feeling, when 
he begins to think and to study, — and to 
think and to study as he must, at first, more 
about the material world and its laws, — often 
finds himself plunged into doubt, perhaps 
into despair. It is only when one has 
thought out these matters for one's self, 
understands the reality, the depth, the pre- 



PERSONAL BELIEF 6 1 



eminence of spiritual laws and forces, dis- 
cerns what is the true nature of the Power at 
the heart of things, that this Power may be 
most adequately, though still imperfectly 
named in the language of man as Life and 
Love, only then that we can view with en- 
tire equanimity and confidence the strange 
panorama of life and death which passes con- 
stantly before us. This advantage, then, 
has he whose belief is intellectual and logi- 
cal rather than emotional and intuitional. 
Though it may be less an abiding thought, 
it is at least well established, a mental con- 
clusion which no sudden experience can 
shake, no subtle argument overthrow. 

Most fortunate, however, is he who draws 
his faith from both these sources, the head 
and the heart, — to whom truth is a living 
reality, yet thoroughly confirmed by reason 
and logic. 

It is not meant by the foregoing that 
every one must necessarily complete a sci- 
entific investigation of the relations of mind 
and matter or frame for himself some elabo- 
rate theory of the nature of the universe. 
This would be absurd as well as impossible. 



THE ESSENTIAL MAN 



It is only needful for us to grasp a few of 
the great distinctions of life, the material 
and the spiritual, the visible and the in- 
visible, the transient and the abiding, to 
comprehend the deeper realities of moral 
and spiritual nature, in order to free our- 
selves from the bondage of the senses, and 
to rest assured of the existence of that both 
in man and the universe which indeed tran- 
scends all physical powers of perception, yet 
is the most real and abiding of all that is. 

The question which comes to all at some 
time — where is the soul, and whither its 
course ? — loses not its mystery perhaps, 
but at least its unanswerable and contra- 
dictory character, when we see that these 
mental, moral and spiritual realities in human 
life of which the soul is the author transcend 
the ideas of place and of space, that the fact 
that the soul must ever be known through 
some internal faculty or other means of 
recognition is entirely natural, just what we 
should expect in the nature of things ; for 
in the communion of this life we never see 
mind, or soul, we only recognize or know it 
through outward manifestations, the coun- 
tenance, the gesture, the voice. 



PERSONAL BELIEF 63 

It is a fact of which I think every one is 
conscious that at certain times immortality 
seems more real than at others. Especially 
when our thoughts dwell on the higher things 
of life, and we take a large, broad, generous 
view of humanity, we seem verily to enter 
the world invisible, the deathlessness of man 
seems almost self-evident, we can hardly con- 
ceive it otherwise. Only when our minds 
dwell upon the small and sordid matters of 
human relation, when we grovel in the dust 
to obtain the meat that perisheth, do we 
seem to lose faith in the world unseen. And 
this is both natural and significant. It is a 
law of the human mind applicable in all 
spheres alike that we shall not, cannot un- 
derstand that to which we give little thought 
and attention. When one says there is no 
God because the telescope cannot find him 
in space, no soul because the microscope 
cannot find it in the human organism, it is 
clear at once that he has no idea of what 
God is or of what the soul is ; it would be as 
sensible and pertinent to deny the laws of 
morality because they are not found, a geo- 
logic product among the rocks, or the beau- 



64 THE ESSENTIAL MAN 

ties of the law of love because it is not 
written in material characters on the back- 
ground of the sky. The subtlest wonders of 
the physical world are evident only to the 
naturalist, the wonders of the spiritual world 
only to the spiritual naturalist, only to him 
who has some conception, at least, of the 
laws of spirit through his own experience. 

In the life of almost every one there are 
moments of extraordinary mental illumina- 
tion. If not in common hours, at least when 
beholding some majestic scene of nature or 
in some soul-stirring experience, we seem to 
stand face to face with the Infinite, uncon- 
scious of all corporeal restraint and thought, 
and rising into communion with the invisible 
Presence. The Infinite seems no longer 
inscrutable. We have entered the portals of 
a larger world, the world of unlimited in- 
spiration and light and grandeur. So like- 
wise, and even more, in moments of self- 
sacrifice, when we forget ourselves in the 
joy of obedience to the moral law, when we 
lose ourselves and as sublimely find ourselves 
anew in the self-abnegation and yet the self- 
fulfilment of Christian love, the floodgates 



PERSONAL BELIEF 65 

of eternal vision seem loosed for us, we 
stand face to face with great spiritual truths 
toward the realization of which the whole 
creation moves, all merely worldly ideas and 
aims seem infinitely small and trivial, we 
wonder how we can care so much for the 
trifles and petty things of life, and mystery 
itself is solved in the understanding of that 
transcendent virtue for the consummation of 
which alone the travail of Time exists, — the 
virtue of unselfish thought and life. 

But I know nothing of this, says the 
skeptic ; all this is sheer fancy, for you can- 
not tell me of it so that I myself can realize 
it. But can the mariner tell the landsman 
of the beauties of the ocean, of the sublimity 
and awfulness of its tempests ? Can the 
artist point out successfully for the under- 
standing of the unaesthetic the subtleties and 
genius of the great masterpieces ? Can the 
philosopher explain clearly to him of un- 
trained mind the depths of Aristotle or Kant 
or Martineau ? 

If some one, perchance, deride these phi- 
losophies as meaningless jargon, if the ad- 
mirer of the blazoned and the piebald find 



66 THE ESSENTIAL MAN 

neither merit nor satisfaction in the schools 
of Rembrandt or Raphael, we are in no 
wise weakened in our minds concerning the 
truth and profundities of the one or the 
beauties and genius of the other. The same 
law which will bring the ignorant many 
sooner or later into subjection to the wise 
and masterful few, in spite of the incredulity 
of the multitude, sets and maintains the 
standards of art and of learning. Something 
of this nature is true in the discernment of 
spiritual things. Experience alone bringeth 
full knowledge. Spirit alone understandeth 
the spiritual, and love only comprehendeth 
love. 

Moreover, we may naturally and reason- 
ably believe that there have been great gen- 
iuses in religion as well as in other spheres 
of human knowledge and thought, those to 
whom insight and intuition of spiritual reali- 
ties have come with a clearness and penetra- 
tion impossible to the many, yet with valid 
significance for all. Jesus Christ taught the 
deathlessness of the soul ; and aside from all 
questions of special inspiration, solely on the 
grounds of reason, we may accept his testi- 



PERSONAL BELIEF 67 

mony as the most important and convincing 
ever given from individual thought and expe- 
rience. Such a man, such a mind, such a 
heart, must have had visions of the true 
nature of life and humanity which others did 
not, could not have, because they had not 
adequate experience as their source and 
foundation. It is said sometimes that one 
man knows as much, as another on this great 
and mysterious question of the future. In 
one sense, of course, this is true ; for no one 
knows from actual observation. But it is 
not true that one is just as able as any other 
to draw a reasonable inference in regard 
thereto, i.e., to judge and to prophesy. No 
one, certainly, would make this claim in re- 
gard to evolution ; yet this scientific theory 
rests upon precisely the same sort of proof 

— namely, the so-called cumulative argument 

— as is presented in behalf of the continued 
existence of man. In truth, the more one 
knows and understands of the facts of life 
and the world, material, mental and moral, 
especially the more deeply one has pene- 
trated into the life of the spirit, — something 
possible for every one, — the better qualified 



68 THE ESSENTIAL MAN 

is he to judge of the true nature of man, 
and therefore to forecast his destiny. 

But what, may be asked, is the effect of 
this belief in immortality upon human life ? 
Would life be worth living, did we knozv that 
there were no future in store for us ? To 
the second question, frequently propounded 
in our time, some reply with an emphatic 
yes, others with an equally emphatic no. 
Both are right or both are wrong, according 
as we look at it ; or, in other words, it would 
depend on the temperament of the individ- 
ual. To a few fearful of divine penalty or to 
whom existence itself is a burden, it would 
be a relief ; to more buried in the pursuits 
of this world and able to conceive no other 
than material happiness, it would be a mat- 
ter of indifference ; but to most, surely to the 
most sensitive, the most aspiring, the most 
eager to know and to comprehend the things 
of God, it would be a perpetual pall, a cloud 
in the sunniest sky, a terrible fact ever pres- 
ent and intruding its awful reality like some 
hidden grief into the hour of the most joy- 
ous activity. Man knows not the value of 
hope and belief till they are taken from him. 



PERSONAL BELIEF 69 

And the influence of this conviction on 
the civilized world, the power of an endless 
life, we cannot easily overestimate. How, 
in truth, could man, could the world do with- 
out it ? That here and there a disbeliever 
therein seems to be no different from others, 
to exert no appreciable influence on the life 
of the community, proves nothing. The 
general sentiment and its effects are too 
strong for appreciable individual influence. 
Nor, were the belief erased at once and for- 
ever from the mind and heart of man, is it 
supposed that there would be a sudden de- 
cadence of morality and righteousness. But 
what in ten, in fifty, in one hundred years, 
when generations should have arisen to 
whom from infancy this world was all, 
nothing beyond, no hope, no belief, no in- 
spiration to form and perpetuate characters 
which shall be everlasting, no incentive to 
that righteousness which shall lead at last 
to the perfect light and felicity of heaven ? 
Truly, apart from all the joy of anticipation 
and hope that in a higher state we shall meet 
again those whom we have lost, the absence 
of the motive and inspiration and light of an 



7<D THE ESSENTIAL MAN 

endless life from the life of the world would 
mean, with many at least, stagnation and 
disaster. How the teaching of morality 
would drag on the rough earth of material 
things ! How the admonition to a better 
life, the exhortation to strive for the attain- 
ments of virtue and holiness, would be met, 
and met well-nigh unanswerably, with the 
reply, " Shall we not eat and drink and be 
merry, for to-morrow we die ? " 

But, if the future life be a reality, if the 
power of an endless life be so great even 
amid the events of Time, why is it not 
granted to us to know more of it ? The 
ways of Providence are often mysterious, 
we cannot "see the end from the begin- 
ning " ; yet here, at least, we may discern 
wisdom. Knowledge even of the future of 
earth would paralyze effort. Were it fore- 
seen to bring happiness, we should be all 
haste to reach it, were it dismal with mis- 
fortune, a shadow would be cast over the 
brightest pathway. In either case it would 
largely annul the present for us. So, if the 
future state be as we believe, as it seems, 
indeed, that it must be, one of far higher 



PERSONAL BELIEF 7 I 

privilege, opportunity, and happiness, then 
the knowledge and anticipation would di- 
minish the labors and energies of the pres- 
ent, would go far to deprive this life of that 
character of which it is clearly designed to 
be, a period of development, discipline, edu- 
cation, preparation for that which shall come 
after. A most profound maxim in the econ- 
omy of God are the last words of Thoreau 
to a friend who thought to catch, through 
his dying vision, some glimpse of the farther 
shore, — " One world at a time." Not that, 
in forgetfulness and neglect of our higher 
welfare we sink to the level of purely tem- 
poral ambition and enjoyment, simply that, 
free from morbid curiosity and fancy con- 
cerning that which shall be, we make that 
which is ever the most efficient preparation 
for the future, the best use of the present. 



CHAPTER VI. 

CONDITIONAL IMMORTALITY. 

In his statement read before the minis- 
terial council at Plymouth Church, Rev. 
Lyman Abbott, D.D. spoke strongly in 
favor of the theory of " future probation/' 
At the same time, however, he expressed 
himself as inclined to the doctrine of " Con- 
ditional Immortality/' The inconsistency 
here is clearly apparent ; for the idea of 
future probation is entertained by its advo- 
cates solely in the interests of reason and 
theodicy so-called, i.e., in vindication of 
the divine justice. But, since "Conditional 
Immortality " denies continued existence to 
all who have not fully profited by the test 
of earthly life, probation in the future be- 
comes at once impertinent and superfluous. 
To an inquiry how these two statements 
could be reconciled the Outlook (then the 
Christian Union) replied that immortality 
did not signify necessarily the mere survival 



CONDITIONAL IMMORTALITY 73 

of the event called death, but a never-ending 
life thereafter. Doubtless this is in one 
sense true, but it is not the practical mean- 
ing of the word in Christian thought. In 
other words, few would have doubt of the 
perpetual life of the soul, if it survives the 
catastrophe of physical dissolution ; and im- 
mortality signifies thus, as a matter of fact, 
as men use and understand the word, the in- 
herent power of the spirit to exist discon- 
nected from the physical organism. 

Not only does the inconsistency still re- 
main ; but it is apparently a case of confu- 
sion of the two theories of conditional im- 
mortality, in many aspects the exact reverse 
each of the other. The one regards man as 
created after the manner of "the beast that 
perisheth ,, and receiving immortality only 
as a gift through Christ under certain con- 
ditions. The other views man as a being 
naturally immortal, but liable to lose his 
birthright in the passage of ages through 
the self-destroying power of sin. The first 
is thought by its advocates to be taught in 
the Bible, is simply the old-time dogma of 
annihilation under a more attractive name. 



74 THE ESSENTIAL MAN 

The second is a theory based upon reason, 
so far as it has a foundation at all, and prac- 
tically employed as a substitute for the doc- 
trine of the everlasting punishment of the 
persistently wicked. Both may be said to 
be only products of the theological imagina- 
tion, with the advantage, between the two, 
wholly with the second ; for, although it is 
impossible to know, or even reasonably to 
infer, no sufficient data being given, in re- 
gard to the effect of sin on a being naturally 
immortal, it is at least not irrational in its 
conception, and not inconsistent with what 
would seem to be the moral purposes of 
creation. But that man, without the germ 
of immortality within himself, should, under 
conditions of belief, become immortal, is a 
conception realizable only in the sphere of 
the miraculous, and that, too, not as a mira- 
cle claimed in the sphere of experience, but 
only as a prophecy of the future. And even 
from the point of view of revelation, — with 
the discussion of which our present aim does 
not concern itself, — whatever may be the 
interpretation of a few single passages, it is 
plainly incompatible with the general spirit 
of the New Testament. 



CONDITIONAL IMMORTALITY 75 

The Church has been often dramatic ; in 
its thought of the divine sovereignty after 
the manner of the oriental potentate, it has 
given birth to those awful portrayals of the 
last things which the pen of Dante and the 
brush of Raphael have made sublime in 
genius, if not in thought. But, of all spec- 
tacular products of the imagination, none 
can equal in absurdity the conception of 
certain Christian sects of the final fate of 
the impenitent. All men being naturally 
mortal in their view, i.e., on the same 
plane with the entire animal creation, it 
would seem that, while those meeting cer- 
tain requirements receive through miracle 
the gift of eternal life, others remaining in 
their original state would simply cease to 
be. But no ! the ecclesiastical imagination 
is not thus easily satisfied. On the dawn of 
the day of judgment those who, not being 
naturally immortal, have ceased to be are to 
be miraculously restored to life, then pub- 
licly annihilated, restored to their previous 
state. What a travesty on the thought of 
the ways of the Infinite! A day of judg- 
ment to judge those for centuries or ages 



76 THE ESSENTIAL MAN 

non-existent and miraculously re-created for 
the sole purpose of re-annihilation ! A spec- 
tacular exhibition to celebrate the divine 
justice and triumph ! 

Nor is the rationalized form of the fancy of 
much greater weight, the theory — proposed 
occasionally, in order to escape the supposed 
objection to the doctrine of immortality aris- 
ing from the countless multitude of those 
who have lived and will live — that only in- 
dividuals who have reached a certain stage 
of development can survive death. For it 
seems intrinsically improbable, as well as 
unjust, in truth, that the short span of 
earthly life with its varying opportunities 
should, in effect, radically change the essen- 
tial constitution of man. We can conceive 
as highly probable that a being such as man, 
with self-consciousness and the power of 
self-determination, has that in himself, the 
source of these divine qualities, diverse in 
nature from all material things and existing 
per se, which shall thus survive disconnec- 
tion with the physical organism ; but that 
variation of condition for a few years should 
destroy or create this peculiar nature or 



>} 



CONDITIONAL IMMORTALITY 77 



power is in the highest degree improbable. 
Whatever has reached the grade "man 
must be included with all the race in the 
forecast of its destiny. 

The only theory of conditional immortal- 
ity, indeed, which is even consistent with 
knowledge and reason, is the second of the 
two mentioned at the beginning of the chap- 
ter, that based on the assumed self-destruc- 
tive power of sin. As this is supposed to be 
not an immediate effect, but rather the ulti- 
mate result in course of ages, it is free from 
many objections which embarrass other the- 
ories. It seems in a way consistent with 
evolutionary thought ; yet at most it is only 
a rational possibility, nothing more. 

In the light of our reason, within the 
bounds of our knowledge and of all infer- 
ences we may draw therefrom, men are all 
alike, either mortal or immortal, "all or 
none," as Abraham Lincoln said in response 
to enquiry on this very question. If there 
be nothing in man except material elements, 
if these be the foundation and all else the 
product, then it is idle to think of immortal- 
ity either conditional or otherwise, for any 



78 THE ESSENTIAL MAN 

or for all ; but, if the true man is a soul, 
then, as the preceding chapters have sought 
to show, immortality is the only rational be- 
lief, the belief, i.e., which is most consist- 
ent with <z//the facts of life in every sphere, 
the only belief which comports with the 
grand ideas of purpose which the universe 
forces upon us. And what the intrinsic nat- 
ure of man reveals for one, it reveals for all ; 
for far greater and more radical and essen- 
tial than all extremes of condition and cir- 
cumstance are the transcendent powers of 
man, even in their undeveloped germ and po- 
tency, and the divine nature of which they 
are the expression, a nature none other 
than a direct effluence from God. 



CHAPTER VII. 



CONCLUSION. 



A college student some years ago being 
asked by the instructor the difference be- 
tween science and philosophy, replied : " Sci- 
ence is what we know, philosophy is " — 
after protracted hesitation — " what we don't 
know." To some it may seem that he blun- 
dered into a reply very like the truth. Yet 
this is at best only a very superficial view. 
Science consists in the classification of ma- 
terial phenomena and the inferences or the- 
ories rationally derived from them. It is the 
former, however, the classified phenomena, 
which especially engage our attention and 
have an immediate reality for us. Philos- 
ophy, on the other hand, deals with abstract 
principles, seeking ultimately to combine 
them all into a rational system. These prin- 
ciples and this system, however, are based 
on the classified phenomena of experience, 
equally certain as and indeed including the 
phenomena of physical science. 



80 THE ESSENTIAL MAN 

Philosophy stands thus upon the same 
plane as the generalizations and theories of 
science; they are both rational inferences 
from detailed human experience, the one 
from experience limited to material things, 
the other from the entire experience of man 
material, mental, moral and spiritual. And 
when these inferences and theories extend 
to ultimate facts and realities, e.g., to some 
doctrine of the development of the material 
universe, or of the origin and destiny of man, 
they are still upon the same plane ; we have 
not different kinds of knowledge and belief, 
but simply knowledge and belief in different 
spheres. Scientific philosophy and religious 
philosophy rest upon equally certain facts of 
experience, and with equal weight and valid- 
ity extend outward and upward to general 
principles and ultimate beliefs. We are only 
required to proceed according to what is 
called the scientific method, i.e., to advance 
logically from what we do know to that which, 
being outside of actual human experience, is 
not strictly demonstrable, yet is a rational 
theory or belief. It is this method which it 
has been the aim in the preceding chapters 



CONXLUSION 



to follow. As a result we find that scientific 
and religious thought run parallel ; — we 
have correspondingly in both the same kind 
of knowledge, in other words, we may estab- 
lish our religious thought scientifically, which, 
while surely not the end of religion, may be 
a fertile means for its advancement. We find 
there is the same proof in nature and amount 
for the reality of spirit as for the reality of 
matter, for the reality of the soul as for the 
reality of the atom, in fact more, for only 
through spirit do we know matter, only in 
the self-consciousness of the person do we 
find an example of true unity. We find also 
proof the same in kind but vastly greater in 
quantity for the existence of God as for the 
existence of what is called "ether." It is 
claimed at least that the existence of the lat- 
ter is necessary to explain material phe- 
nomena ; it is abundantly clear that no scien- 
tific, much more no moral explanation of the 
universe is possible without the conception 
of Infinite Intelligence at its heart. 

No more faith, moreover, is required in 
the one case than in the other. Scientific 
theories rest ultimately upon faith, faith in 



82 THE ESSENTIAL MAN 

the essential reason and truthfulness of the 
universe ; upon the same rest also our moral 
and religious beliefs. But this is not the 
faith which is fancy, but the faith which is 
reason, it simply trusts the testimony of ex- 
perience and the human faculties which de- 
rive ultimate principles and beliefs there- 
from. 

Thus in the foregoing chapters we have 
seen, first, that mind cannot be the product 
of matter, the spiritual, of the material ; sec- 
ond, that our experience of mind, that is, 
what mind is and does, its unity in self-con- 
sciousness, its valid claim thus as the highest, 
indeed as the only true reality, as well as the 
scientific law of the conservation of energy, 
all point to the persistence of mind or soul, 
in other words, to the persistence of the 
human personality; third, that a moral uni- 
verse in its very nature demands an end and 
realization of its existence, that this end can 
be found only in the survival and perfection 
of that which is its greatest, indeed its only 
true reality, the human spirit. Thus, psy- 
chologically, the nature of man in itself, and, 
teleologically, the study of that nature in re- 



CONCLUSION 83 



lation to all other manifestations of the Infi- 
nite lead to belief in personal immortality. 

But what will be the nature of an exist- 
ence when the spirit is no longer connected 
and correlated with visible forms of matter 
which we call the physical organism ? We 
have hardly begun to fathom the mysteries 
of the material world, still less the mystery 
of the spirit by which alone things material 
have any definite reality and by which alone 
they are known to us. Light, sound, heat, 
have been shown by physical science to be 
far different from "what they seem/' Space 
and Time the most rational philosophy tells 
us are but forms in which reality pictures 
itself to us under present conditions. Shall 
we marvel then that we cannot describe in 
material language the nature and possibili- 
ties of the spiritual, or hesitate to believe that 
which from its very nature must be unpictur- 
able to the physical senses, because we can- 
not thus picture it ? One fact, in truth, we 
find appeals on this subject to all, believers 
and unbelievers alike, — it cannot be more 
wonderful that man shall continue to exist 
than that he exists now and here, no future 



84 THE ESSENTIAL MAN 

existence can be a greater marvel than the 
present. 

Yet what we see and hear, what we think 
even, is but a small part of the grandeur of 
God's universe and the heritage of God's 
children ; and amid the shifting sands of ma- 
terial knowledge we know as nothing else 
the truths of the spirit, the boundless reality 
of faith, love, charity, righteousness, in which 
are joy, happiness, peace and immortality. 



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